Messy Business.5_ First sort of episode

The transcription is a conversation between two early childhood educators who are starting a podcast called "Messy Business." They discuss their goals for the podcast, their experiences as principals in early childhood, and the challenges they face. They hope to connect with other educators, provide valuable information, and support the early childhood community. They also talk about the messy nature of their work and the importance of embracing it. They plan to cover various topics and interview guests in future episodes. Overall, they are excited about the podcast and hope to gain more followers. Are we live? We can edit anything. But can we? Yes. I am the editor. So it's recording. Okay. So this is it. All right. This is it for doing this. We're hoping for more than four. All right. Welcome to Messy Business, a podcast with Real Talk for early childhood educators. Our goal is to connect, inspire, laugh, reflect, and problem solve all things early childhood. That's a lot. You think that could happen? You think we can do all that? I think we can. All right. We're going to give it a shot. It might get messy, though. Okay. Well, who are you? All right. Well, I am Erin Alexander. I am the principal. I am a principal. I am Erin Alexander, and I am a principal in early childhood. Who are you? I am also a principal in early childhood. I'm Kathy Angelos, and I, too, am a principal in early childhood. And here to talk about messy business. Yes, we have known each other for a long time. And you've been someone that I've always relied on or called and leaned on, because oftentimes there's only one early childhood administrator, or maybe you're a principal and you happen to have early childhood in your classroom. It's something that you need to network. You need your people. Okay. So how many years has that been? Like, do we even know? For me? No, for us to have known each other, like our connection. This is my 11th year, so a solid decade. And this, I'll be starting my 17th year, I think. Yeah, 17th year of overseeing early childhood. And in that time, we both have open schools, like own standalone early childhood buildings. Yes, that's something, that's a unique experience that we share that I think, you know, why you've been someone that I've called many times, because you know what that's like and the challenges that go with it, which we're going to do a whole episode on that in the future. Opening a building. Coming soon. Coming soon. So why are we doing this? Because we're crazy. Yes, definitely. That. And also because, as we've talked, you know, early childhood is just unique. You know, it's ages three to five. And colleagues within our own group, our own collective district or group, other admin, don't really know a lot about early childhood. You don't really learn it, about it, in your, like, type 75 master's program, right? It's like, almost like baptism by fire. Like, here you are. And so there's a great group, and we'll talk about some of these, you know, coordinator meetings and networking things that we're a part of. But you really have to self-taught a lot and rely on each other. And you and I have just, we have always connected. We have always laughed a lot at ourselves and our situations. But, you know, we've reflected over the years about many different things. And also, like, inspired each other. You know, I've seen things that you've posted on X or Instagram or wherever. And I'll be like, we can do that. They did that. We can do that. And vice versa, I know. And so I think we just decided, like, let's sit down. Let's see if we can get more than, you know, our goal is four, four followers. Because that's currently what is on our, I'm going to search, I'm going to refresh our ex-Twitter profile. And Messy Business currently has four. We are still standing strong at four. I think at this point, we are kind of trending. We are trending, exactly. Well, you have to start somewhere. This is really good pre-data. And then we'll look at our post-data later and look for growth trends. Gosh, I hope we don't just flatline there. I haven't sent this to my family yet. So I'm trying to get, my mom and dad will hop on. We'll get a couple more. I sent it to my kids and they're, I'm surprised they haven't texted back yet and said, you're kind of crazy yet. But I haven't received that. But that will come, I'm sure. And they will probably not follow it until they know all the ins and outs. Because what do I know? Right. Not much. Yeah. Well, we actually know a lot. We brainstormed a huge list of content for this podcast. We have all kinds of topics. We have guests that we want to bring on. And we want to make this really relevant and practical because time is precious. We all just want to hop on a podcast, give me a quick, you know, top three, give me five strategies for this. So we want you to listen and walk away with something of value. And some topics. You want to talk about some of the topics, maybe in our first three episodes, our listeners can expect. Yep. And then we also want to maybe like connect with some people, like interview some people. Maybe a director of special ed, early childhood teacher, or other outside agencies and people that we work with. But we definitely have some ideas and some thoughts. They're just all brewing. Yes. Erin, the name Messy Business. Why'd we go with that? We went with that because preschool is messy, professionally, personally, and literally. It's messy. It is. Yeah. You've got to get in the mess of it. But that's why we love it. And that's why we stay. You've got to get messy. You've got to clean it up a little bit too. But you've got to get messy. You know, right when you walk in a classroom, you're there. You're a target. You are a target. Don't wear white because they're coming at you. But yeah, and whatever project you get handed from a child, because they're all making something for you as soon as you walk in, right? I mean, you're like celebrity status. It's pretty amazing to be the early childhood principal. I will definitely say that. But you walk out of there and whatever it is you're holding, the glue is wet. The paint is wet. Something is going to get on you. And that's OK because that's messy business. Yes, it sure is. We have plans to do a whole episode on fashion. Of course. Things that you wear as a principal and early childhood fashion. Yes, how to keep clean. Yeah, it's not easy. So we're excited. We hope you'll tune in, follow us, listen. We will have a lot of special topics and special guests coming up. We're excited. We want to advocate and provide information and support the early childhood community because we all need each other in this messy business. Oh, what's our clothing, Erin? I don't know. Thanks for getting messy with us. Thanks for getting messy with us. This is going to evolve into something really incredible. So I just hope everybody stays tuned and join us for getting a little messy. We'll see you next time. See you next time. Bye.